People spend most of their time using other products, so they expect yours to work the same way as the ones they already know.
Overview
No product is used in isolation. People arrive with years of experience from websites, apps, email, office tools, and other business systems. That experience forms strong expectations about where things are and how they work: the logo links to home, the search box is at the top, a gear icon means settings.[1][2]
Jakob’s Law, named for usability pioneer Jakob Nielsen, states that users transfer expectations from familiar products to new ones. Designs that meet those expectations feel intuitive. Designs that break them feel confusing, even when they are clever.
This does not mean every product must look identical. It means that innovation should be focused where it adds real value, while common tasks follow familiar conventions.
Why it matters
Familiar patterns require almost no learning, which reduces training, support, and errors. Unfamiliar patterns force people to stop and think, even for routine tasks.
For an organization with many products, Jakob’s Law applies internally as well: people move between systems throughout the day. A shared design language that uses consistent patterns across products lets people transfer what they learn from one system to all the others.[3][4]
Key takeaways
- Follow conventions for common tasks such as navigation, search, forms, tables, and settings.
- Save innovation for where it creates value, such as a uniquely complex workflow, not for standard interactions.
- Be consistent across your own products. Internal consistency is as important as matching external conventions.
- When change is necessary, ease the transition. Explain what changed and why, and where practical, let people adjust gradually.
- Research how people work elsewhere. Understand the tools your users rely on most.
In practice
Common patterns in business applications, portals, and internal tools:
Supports the principle | Undermines the principle |
|---|---|
Standard placement for logo, navigation, search, and account menu. | A custom navigation scheme unique to one product. |
Common icons used with their common meanings. | A familiar icon repurposed for a different action. |
Shared components from the design system across products. | Each team building its own version of tables, forms, and dialogs. |
Redesigns introduced with guidance and a transition period. | Overnight changes to a familiar layout without explanation. |
Keyboard shortcuts that match widely used conventions. | Unexpected behavior for common shortcuts like Ctrl+S or Esc. |
Questions to ask in a design review
- Does this work the way people would expect, based on other products they use daily?
- Is this a standard task where we should follow convention, or a unique one that justifies something new?
- Is this pattern consistent with our other products?
- If we are changing something familiar, how are we helping people adapt?
Origin
Jakob Nielsen, co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group, articulated the idea in his 2000 article End of Web Design, observing that “users spend most of their time on other sites,” and that this creates strong conventions designers should respect.[2]
The principle reinforces one of Nielsen’s ten usability heuristics, consistency and standards, and is a core argument for design systems and shared design languages.[3][5]
Related concepts
- Mental Model — expectations people bring from past experience
- Conceptual Model — the model a product communicates
- Cognitive Dissonance — the discomfort when expectations are violated
- Signifiers — conventions are among the strongest signifiers
- Design Principles — shared principles support consistency
- Paradox of the Active User — people rely on what they already know
References and further reading
- Yablonski, J. Jakob’s Law. Laws of UX. https://lawsofux.com/jakobs-law/
- Nielsen Norman Group. End of Web Design. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/end-of-web-design/
- Nielsen Norman Group. Maintain Consistency and Adhere to Standards (Usability Heuristic #4). https://www.nngroup.com/articles/consistency-and-standards/
- Nielsen Norman Group. Design Systems 101. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/design-systems-101/
- Nielsen Norman Group. 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
- Nielsen Norman Group. Jakob’s Law of Internet User Experience (video). https://www.nngroup.com/videos/jakobs-law-internet-ux/
- Yablonski, J. Laws of UX (format inspiration for this series). https://lawsofux.com/